Once you think that you have nothing else to learn - that is when you will learn nothing else. Keep your mind open - and keep looking and learning.

I feel much the same way as you do, as someone also approching level 7.

I can write a perl program to do what I want it to do. But.... I still feel much like a newbie to programming in general, despite having been doing it for years now in some form or another.

And I feel this way despite seeming to have a fair knowledge of perl syntax, methodologies and intracacies, an idea of modules availible and some experience with a decentish selection of them and knowledge of how to get to most of the information I might need to do most of anything in perl.

However having never made anything other then tools, toys and projects for my own interest, desires or training, I feel I have not actually progressed to a truly 'useful' stage as a programmer.

So I spend some time on perlmonks answering people's questions. This I feel has been useful to me as searching through the docs for some obscure useage or module has expanded my perl knowledge. I don't always get the answer right. I don't always answer with the right detail, as furthur followups by other monks leave my feeble suggestions behind. But I still do help other people in their projects at times. But my own projects still feel like those of a newbie, with no true grasp of programming or perl.

I think that says something about the perl language, that since there are some many more ways to do it, there are lots of elegant ways to things that gives it such a flexibility and wide array of uses that we all have a lot to learn.